


Off By Heart

by latinaeinstein (oneforyourfire)



Category: Block B
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 22:37:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15805950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneforyourfire/pseuds/latinaeinstein
Summary: Jiho is Kyung's everything





	Off By Heart

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for gay angst and pining
> 
> originally posted in 2013

Kyung realizes it on a Monday

After Lit class, sitting across from one another on one of the tables outside of Starbucks, trading notes on Tolstoy's _Anna Karenina_ ,

Kyung is tracing listless patterns along the blue margins of his college-ruled notebook, murmuring about Vronsky and the _wrongness_ of certain kinds of love. And Jiho is chewing his bottom lip, eyebrows furrowed, countering with something about want, about fulfillment, about how even wrong love can be enough sometimes.

Kyung starts to argue back, but Jiho dismisses him with a flick of his wrist

"You don't know because nobody wants to date you, Kyung," he whispers sympathetically, nodding solemnly as he twines his fingers with Kyung's across the table. "No girlfriend Kyung," he states in slightly slurred, accented English.

Jiho presses his finger to Kyung's lips almost affectionately, silencing him before he has a chance to respond.

Kyung blinks. Jiho laughs.

One of those overreacting, for attention laughs

He throws his head back from the force of it, eyes squinted shut.

His nose is too big. His eyebrows too thick. His mouth gaping open as he wheezes. There's drool on his chin.

But in the afternoon light, Kyung realizes, he's beautiful. Probably the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Kyung knows all of a sudden, and it hurts so fucking badly, he can barely breathe as he stares at his best friend in the soft winter air.

Trying not to freak out from the sudden severity of it, he murmurs about needing to go home _right now_.

Jiho reaches out, makes as if to hug him—like usual—but Kyung shoves his notebook into his canvas backpack and runs before he has a chance to, sneakers pounding against the concrete, limbs numb, heart racing.

 

With his head between his knees and his ears ringing, Kyung analyzes it, breaks it apart.

Wondering when he started moving leisurely towards this _something_ and how it culminated so suddenly in _this_.

Because Kyung is 21 years old and in love with his best friend.

And Jiho doesn't--can't possibly--feel the same.

Kyung tries to make sense of it.

Make beauty or poetry.

Kyung tries to think about the nobility of suffering, about the beauty of imploding under the very vastness of his love.

 

Jiho has a girl.

Has had a girl for almost three months at this point, since she sat beside him one Tuesday last semester right before their first Chinese History exam and Jiho agreed to trade an extra Blue Book for a coffee date.

She's a pretty, smart, _nice_ girl with long black hair and soft curves.

Who keeps time with her nimble fingers, polished red tapping against wooden tabletops as Jiho raps.

Who inspires scrawling, clumsy poetry on the edges of Jiho's notebooks, so they bleed into notes on British colonialism, American revolution.

Who is Jiho's _everything_ when Kyung is just his almost, his rock. His constant, his _comfort blanket_. Because they _get_ each other.

Like soul mates. Only not romantic. At least, not for Jiho.

 

Other halves, Jiho informs him, three weeks later, in one of those quiet moments, when it's just the two of them, sitting cross-legged on Jiho's green carpet, eating gummy worms and talking about their futures.

Kyung thinks about how unfair and almost _aching_ this hunger is. Being so _close_ and still _starving_.

And Jiho shifts to rest his head on Kyung's stomach, playing with the hem of Kyung's shirt as he murmurs about 4 year plans and college diplomas.

Touching him lazily, comfortably, but not in the way Kyung needs him to.

Not in that teasingly perfect way he touches him in Kyung's dreams, on the nights when Kyung wakes up with his pants wet and his heart rattling hard in his chest.

 

The jealousy curls slowly in his gut, twists and climbs to press tight against his lungs, tease along his tear ducts.

Kyung kind of wants to die, but settles for offering his best friend soft smiles and quiet encouragement. Humming his approval. Pretending it doesn't kill him slowly, sap him cruelly.

He fakes with wide grins for Jiho's benefit

Only allows himself to bleed in the evenings, with his heart raw and open and his hand down his pants, Jiho's name leaving swollen, open lips in quiet pants.

 

Love means drowning.

Love means pain.

And Kyung swallows down the _ache_.

 

Jiho's girl—Hyerim— _knows_.

Kyung's not sure for how long. If maybe she realized it at the same time as him, or maybe knew even before. But she _knows_.

Four weeks into Kyung's agony, on Tuesday, while Jiho scrambles in his apartment's kitchen for popcorn, Hyerim tenses slightly besides Kyung on the coach before scooting closer, thigh touching his

She leans over confidentially, suddenly too close, soft peach scent invading his senses.

He can see every pore. Count every eyelash.

"Kyung," she breathes, smiling softly, something like pity in her oversized brown eyes.

She bites her lower lip, dark eyelashes fluttering down, before continuing.

"Love's a painful and beautiful thing, huh?" Her voice is dreamy, light.

It's probably rhetorical, but Kyung murmurs his ascent.

"I love him, you know. And I try my best to make him happy. Make him feel loved."

Ears hot, he watches her lips and wonders how often they've made Jiho feel happy, feel loved. He nods slowly, thinking about the way she brings out the gleam in Jiho's eyes.

"Jiho's your best friend."

It's a non sequitur, but not really. Kyung swallows hard. "Yeah."

"There are plenty of girls…and boys for you to make happy." Her voice is calm, but he sees her hands clenching into the bunched white material of her dress. "You don't have to worry about making Jiho feel happy. Not in that way."

Kyung wants to hate her, but he looks up and her eyes are moist and filled with _something_. Maybe she's perfect for him. Maybe this is part of the nobility of suffering, too.

Kyung's chest feels tight.

"I know," he whispers. "I know."

His eyes trace along her features, dancing over all the details that Jiho claims to love

It hurts to see the differences.

It's almost self-flagellation. Agonizing with his heart near his throat, his hand fisted tight near his bellybutton.

He glances down her body. Along her cheekbones, her collarbone, the tops of her breasts. He wants to find his own Hyerim. Doesn't want to want Jiho.

"I'm sorry, Kyung" she breathes, catching his eyes. It's vaguely humiliating. And he feels like crying, actually feels his eyes and his nose start to sting as she blinks up at him.

But Jiho screams his greeting before Kyung has a chance to start.

Kyung falls back, and Hyerim gives him another soft smile.

"Don't touch my girl," he jokes

 _No, you don't understand, I want to be her_.

Jiho slides easily between them. Resting the red popcorn bowl on his lap, he threads the fingers of one hand through hers and dangles his legs across Kyung's lap.

Kyung traces absently along dark denim and watches the way the shadows dance across Jiho's face as he leans his head against her shoulder. She runs her fingers through his hair.

He registers the vague sound of some woman screaming in the background.

"The movie," Jiho reprimands him playfully. " _Stop looking at my girl._ "

Kyung nods dumbly and turns his face like he's been slapped.

 

That night at home, Kyung thinks back to the first time he met Jiho.

A scrawny trouble-maker with oversized limbs and chubby lips and unkempt hair, pulling restlessly at the collar of his uniform shirt.

And he hates himself for making it something it's not.

For wanting when he has no right.

Kyung starts to hate himself as much as he loves Jiho.

 

Three weeks later, Jiho loses his girl.

There's nothing else worse than watching the person you love splinter from love for somebody else.

There's nothing worse than wiping Jiho's tear-stained cheeks as he cradles him in his arms, pressing his chin to Jiho's shaking shoulders and trampling down the desire to tell him that he can be Jiho's _new_ everything.

That he can blanket him in oceans of love so deep, so real that Jiho can drown in it, fill all of his cracks, saturate every single pore.

Because Kyung loves him so much.

There's nothing worse, or if there is, he's not sure he can survive it.

Kyung tries to think about the nobility of suffering as he kisses Jiho's damp forehead. Promises him that the pain will fade.

(It _doesn't_ )

Promises that he'll find love again.

( _Please_ no, _please_ me or _please_ no)

Promises that he's enough.

( _For me_ , _please, for me, Jiho_ )

Kyung wants to cry, wants to call her and sobbingly ask why she would ever give up the most beautiful thing, but he settles for collecting every droplet that falls from Jiho's black, black eyelashes, softly thumbing them away.

Hoping that even this unrequited love can heal, knowing it probably can't.

 

Hoping for replacements, for substitutes, _distractions_ ,Kyung holds his hand as he leads Jiho through the doors of some smoky bar in Seoul.

Right into the arms of another pretty, probably nice girl with blonde tips and lace tights and heavy winged eyeliner.

The bile in Kyung's throat is almost as bitter as the alcohol burning its way down towards his stomach.

Kyung chokes it back when Jiho leans in for the kill, whispering something secret—potentially beautiful—in her ear before she slides her fingers up his forearm and pulls him forward to kiss the edge of his jaw.

Five minutes later, and she's stumbling with him out the door.

To touch him like Jiho wants to be touched.

Like Kyung is starving to touch.

Kyung feels himself start to fracture, asks for another shot.

He licks his wounds that night, as Jiho tries to fill up his emptiness.

 

But Jiho devolves, falls further apart, breaking every pretty girl that doesn't taste quite right

 

Jiho stumbles into his apartment late one night, smelling vaguely of perfume, tearing at the collar of his shirt as he complains that he doesn't want to go home. It's too far. And he wants to be held. Wants his non-romantic soulmate.

Collapsing on Kyung's bed with an exaggerated huff, he rolls over onto one elbow to look at Kyung in the soft moonlight. As Kyung drinks him in slowly, heart pounding painfully, hands itching to pull Jiho's body flush with his, Jiho asks him if he's ever wanted to destroy something beautiful. As punishment, or to remind it that it can bleed, too.

Kyung blinks at him in the darkness, shakes his head solemnly.

Jiho tells him that he still hates the parts of himself that she's touched. (Hates the parts of himself that Kyung loves more than he could ever say). Wants others to hate the parts he's touched, too. And Kyung already hates himself, but he still wants Jiho to _want_ him even for a moment, to _break_ him.

Jiho says there's something beautiful, _poetic_ about self-destruction. About dying as a result of your incomplete, foolish love. About shattering, splintering, breaking out of the _hurt_.

Kyung realizes there _is_ something worse, and he _can_ survive it

 

The thing about explosions, Kyung wants to tell him, as Jiho sleepily presses his lips to Kyung's adam's apple, is that others bleed, too.

 

They're kissing on his bed

Kissing without pretext, kissing for the sake of it

(It's worth it, it's worth it, it's worth it)

All lazy tongues and broken exhalations and the soft squeak of box springs as Jiho pushes him back into the mattress. Jiho is cushioned by Kyung's pajama-bottomed thighs, a warm comforting solid weight as he cups his face in his hands, murmuring that Kyung's breath smells like shit and that if he weren't _so_ good with his tongue, maybe he'd stop. Maybe.

But Kyung is, and Jiho, too. And there's something domestic and sleepy and languid and _perfect_ in their movements. Kyung melts further back into his spotted comforter as Jiho paints the inside of his mouth, humming with every slick glide of lips.

Jiho gasps right into his mouth when Kyung slides nimble fingers under his cotton tee and over the planes of his stomach, thumbs rubbing dizzy circles just beneath his ribs. It only coaxes him to press harder and higher, swallow more of the dizzying barely there sounds that Jiho releases.

Heart swelling, lips tingling, Kyung smiles into the kiss, breathing Jiho's name, whispering that he loves him as the warm pleasure crawls up his spine.

Jiho lips curl briefly against his, and he pulls back to nuzzle their noses together. It's _so_ Jiho that Kyung's skin erupts in goosebumps. Kyung feels like he's being enveloped in the warm haze of Jiho's own whispered confession

 

It's always too vivid, too vibrant in the mind of a dreamer, romantic, poet (Kyung can't _write_ the way that Jiho can—nobody can, Jiho's mind and soul are too _much_ —but he can still feel it, can drown as he navigates the beautiful interiors of his words, his emotions, his passions)

And it's jarring, harsh, acutely painful to come back to reality. To feel the sunlight tickling his eyelashes. The limb-numbing pressure of the warm body tangled with his—limbs that drape carelessly, _cruelly_ , lips that brush tantalizingly, breath that dampens his collarbone, hair that scrapes against his chin. To breathe in the heady mix of Tide Detergent, faded perfume, Old Spice, and _childhood_.

Kyung squeezes his eyes shut, body tense, as he braces himself for impact.

This is probably the thousandth time he's woken up next to Jiho. Kyung knows what this entails. Jiho _always_ clings, _always_ mumbles incoherent nothings as he snuggles impossibly close, drooling, digging his finger nails hard into Kyung's skin.

But it's the first time since Kyung gave name to these feelings. It's the first time since it started _hurting_.

 

But he braves the pain anyway, opening his eyes and extricating himself delicately, careful not to awaken the boneless, perfect lump beside him.

He shifts his weight to one elbow and watches Jiho. Hair disheveled, breath deep with sleep, eyebrows furrowed, face soft and beautiful and forbidden.

Kyung resents. Kyung hates.

 

I don't want to be your nonromantic soulmate, Jiho. I don't want to burn up as you wither away. I don't want to explode, too.

He tries to insist as he cups Jiho's jawline, hand as soft and delicate as the morning light flitting across the hard lines of Jiho's face, as hesitant as the stubble dusting Jiho's chin.

_I don't want to keep doing this to myself_

 

And in an alternate universe, with a stronger will, and a heart with less fissures, Kyung thinks about maybe sneaking into clubs at night.

Oozing false confidence and cologne, swallowing liquid courage and the love that threatens to leak out of his pores, kissing boys and girls to see if it makes it feel better. If they taste how he needs them to. If they're just right, maybe even wrong, enough to want him back.

Kyung thinks about squandering his life away.

Kyung thinks about moving on, instead of remaining loyal to the pain and heaviness of this. Instead of hurting himself, letting this break him, incinerate. Because you can't burn what you don't touch, and this is entirely self-inflicted.

He's complicit in this. He just has to be strong enough, resolve to fight.

 

But the younger makes this breathy sound in his sleep, and Kyung's heart feels like it's collapsing in on itself, as Jiho's pulse flutters underneath his fingertips.

Jiho looks so beautiful, and Kyung's flesh is weak from wanting.

It's such a perfect day to hurt.

 

He rubs his thumb reverently along Jiho's full bottom lip and gasps softly as it parts, Jiho's breath ghosting over the delicate skin.

Kyung wants to sear this memory into his mind, sanitize until there's no pain.

He presses his thumb harder, forcing a kiss, biting his own lip hard.

And then Jiho inhales sharply, shudders, blinks his eyes open. The shock registers on his face before melting into something soft. He kisses Kyung's thumb of his own volition, then, and then his palm, smiling up at him as he rasps out a good morning.

Kyung thinks that's the worst part of it. Being _so_ close to what he wants, yet so far. It's a question of degrees, he knows, and he wishes he was okay with what Jiho offers. Wishes he was content. Wishes he was strong enough.

"Jiho," he manages, dragging his hand back, voice thick, "can you _not_ do that next time?"

Jiho's eyebrows furrow.

"Sleep over?" He claps his hand over his mouth in mock indignation. "But _Kyung_ ," he whines, gripping his wrist hard. "You're my best friend, and I _need_ you."

Kyung hopes that Jiho is too bright, too sleepy to see the cracks in his Kyung's smile as he nods indulgently, relenting.

"Now make me breakfast like you're _supposed_ to, best friend."

 

The coffee burns his throat as he accepts that he _can't_ , not yet. Not while Jiho insists that he's needed.

 

It becomes a regular occurrence.

Friday and Saturday nights and the occasional Monday that almost break Kyung.

Jiho frequents the bar near Kyung's studio apartment, fucking pretty girls in bathroom stalls or alley ways or motels or dorm rooms (Kyung tunes out the details, smirking only when he knows it's appropriate, as he bleeds through the lurid, painful images)

Slurring his words and reeking of sin and lust, knocking louder than necessary, and blinking at Kyung indignantly.

He peels off his clothes, drunkenly insists that Kyung lend him pajamas, stumbles onto Kyung's mattress, taking up more than his due.

I'm _lonely_ , he stage whispers, dragging Kyung closer, arms demanding. His eyes implore. His voice cracks with a heartbreaking vulnerability, as he begs Kyung to hold him tighter, make him feel little and innocent and loved.

Kyung chokes.

It's a different perfume every time, an olfactory assault that drowns out the Jiho that he loves, stains Kyung's bedsheets with the shame and loneliness he tries to forget in the morning.

Tongue thick, Kyung tries to tell him that he should sleep with _them_ , stay and let them melt into his suffocating embraces. Let them trace his face in the aftermath, playing with his hair. Let something _bloom_.

People aren't stained glass, Jiho. They aren't mosaics. You can't keep shattering. You can't keep externalizing your hurt and laying waste to the world.

But Jiho shakes his head stubbornly. Says it's _Kyung_ he wants.

Kyung's heart stutters.

He ventures kisses to Jiho's forehead, smoothing his fingers through Jiho's hair as he cradles his head.

 

There _is_ something worse, and he's surviving it. But just barely. He dusts the gunpowder in the early morning, but the fracture lines are starting to show. Outlined not in gold, but in blood, in shame, in desperation, in tears

Not like a piece of pottery, or poetry, but like a human. A 21 year old boy helplessly in love with his best friend.

Kyung doesn't want to be noble.

He doesn't want to be beautifully tragic. He wants Jiho to weave his fingers through Kyung's hair and _love_ him back.

 

And it's not just giving, no.

Because sometimes Jiho leans his forehead against Kyung's shoulder, asks in a whisper of confidence if Kyung is okay, squeezing his hand when Kyung lies.

Best friend, almost soulmate, not quite other half, should be enough, he knows, but it isn't.

He wants Jiho in his lungs. In his rib cage. In his _bones_.

 

Kyung drowns his sorrows with paperbacks and composition books, trying to find solace amidst the most universal and painful of human experiences

Kyung feels precarious, suspended, and just on the cusp of

 

"Have you ever heard of Shahryar?" he asks him one Saturday morning, tapping his chopsticks idly against his blue plastic bowl. Trying his luck over orange juice and scrambled eggs.

Jiho wrinkles his nose in confusion. "That wasn't on the syllabus, was it?"

"I'm—I'm not talking about class right now, Jiho."

His eyebrows furrow, and he shakes his head slowly. Green froggy chopsticks—Jiho's _special_ , purchased as a joke, a matching his and hers set that the two friends share—motion for him to continue.

Kyung takes a slow, shuddering breath, and Jiho's lips curl in amusement.

"He's the king from 1001 Arabian Nights."

"Aladdin," Jiho adds, chewing absently. "Sinbad. Alibabwa."

Kyung nods enthusiastically. "Yeah, but Shahryar is the frame. He was a very powerful man. Kind and wise, the story says, too. And in love with his beautiful, beautiful wife. But one day, he lingered before a hunting trip and caught her cheating with a slave boy. So he…" Kyung drags his thumb across his neck.

Jiho grimaces, and Kyung inhales slowly once more.

"He _hated_ women after her betrayal, so he commissioned his vizier to bring him a new virgin every night. He used them up, bled them dry. And then in the morning, he'd…"

Jiho mimics Kyung's earlier gesture.

"He _punished_ them for being pure and beautiful and _not_ the woman that had betrayed him. He killed them before they got a chance to hurt him again. It got so precarious that the people feared they'd run out of women, and the vizier that they would revolt. But the viziers daughter—a beautiful, brilliant virgin—volunteered herself against her father's wishes."

"And they fall in love?"

"Yeah, _eventually_ , she—she asked him to let her spend her last night with her sister and told her stories, knowing that he'd eavesdrop. For 1001 nights, weaving complicated tales, stories within stories, ending every night with a compelling cliffhanger. For 1001 nights, Jiho, until she ran out of stories, until he fell irreparably in love. She was patient and kind, waiting through his hurt, teasing out of the good and beautiful and redeemable."

Jiho watches him carefully, as if waiting for him to continue. "Kyung, are you saying—?" He presses a thumb to his chest. An unvoiced question.

"Jiho, he's a _bad man_."

"Like Vronsky?" Jiho smiles ruefully

Kyung nods slowly. "Yeah, in a way...Except Scheherazade _redeemed_ him by being enough. By being what he needed. Teaching him to let go of all the pain. People praise their love because of that, but they don't—they don't examine beyond that. Don't scratch beneath the surface. Scheherazade's sacrifice, her pain. Just because she healed him doesn't mean that it wasn't wrong, too. That he wasn't using her up. Bleeding her dry in his own way."

"Isn't it a love story?" Jiho's eyes are heavy on Kyung's face. "Isn't the point that he _couldn't_ fix himself?"

Kyung remembers Jiho's prior insistence that Kyung didn't _know_ love, understand how even _broken_ , _wrong_ love can be enough some times. Only now Kyung does, and it's _wrong_. He wants Jiho to understand that it's _wrong_.

"But that doesn't mean their love was right," Kyung counters, a little pitchily. "That it wasn't abusive and cruel. Her position was one of duress. And just because somebody loves you and _wants_ to fix you doesn't mean you should _do_ that to them. Torture them like that."

"Do you love me, Kyung?" he asks, meeting his eyes across the table, voice low as he pokes at his eggs.

Swallowing thickly, eyes trained on Jiho's, Kyung licks his lips, nodding reverently.

There is a flicker of recognition in Jiho's eyes, a spark that dances across his irises, and Kyung's stomach turns in on itself. Jiho smiles sheepishly, face flushing. The silence is pregnant, heavy with meaning.

 _Please, Jiho, please_.

"I love you, too, Kyung," Jiho declares after a beat, voice suddenly light and artificial

Kyung's heart drops to his stomach, and something inside him shatters. He bites back the broken sound crawling its way up his throat. His entire body feels like a fresh wound as Jiho's eyes catch his, softening. There's an almost apology in his eyes, or the shadows from the morning light

_No, no, no, no, no, no, no._

He pauses, and his voice is suddenly so, so soft. Gentle. Like approaching a wild, wounded animal. Like touching a fragile thing. "Kyung, I'm…"

_No, shut the fuck up, no, no, no, no, please, no, no_

"But that isn't---The paper is due next week," Kyung tries airily, smiling widely. And he's sure the cracks are showing because Jiho's face is stricken, eyes concerned.

_It's too raw to the touch. Stop._

"Kyung." His voice is too measured. It rings in Kyung's ears

 _This is wrong_. Kyung wants to throw up.

"I want to study alone if that's okay with you."

Jiho's eyes are still too kind, almost _pitying_. "Kyung, I think—"

"I have papers to work on, Jiho. Are you done?" He motions to Jiho's mostly untouched breakfast, hand trembling.

Jiho blinks at him and nods dumbly, rising almost mechanically. He reaches out, though, to grip Kyung's wrist tightly, trying to meet his eyes. Kyung shakes him off.

"I need to work on things, Jiho, okay? I need to be alone." His voice waivers slightly, and Kyung hates himself for that. So he says it again, louder, firmer, voice stiff and pitched low with an air of authority.

 

Kyung waits until Jiho is out of his apartment, out of the building before collapsing into a heap on his woven rug, sobbing brokenly, forehead pressed tight to the rough fabric, fingers clenching and unclenching, heart open and raw and bleeding.

It keeps getting worse, and he keeps having to _survive_

 

That night he dreams that he's a giant balloon elephant tied to Jiho's wrist, trailing behind him as he wins other--shinier, prettier, fuzzier--prizes at the carnival. Jiho runs through the house of mirrors, and Kyung gets caught on a sharp corner, pops.

 

Kyung turns off his phone. Logs out of his email. Shuts off all social networking notifications.

He cocoons himself in literary analysis.

In resonating words that don't belong to him.

He tries not to be human.

He tries not to think about what he might have broken.

Whom he might have lost.

 

But Jiho shakes the foundation before he even has a chance to rebuild himself.

That Monday night, knuckles rapping, voice imploring on the other side of the door.

"Go away," Kyung states, voice full of more pain than conviction.

Through the peephole, Jiho hangs his head but doesn't make to move.

"Kyung, I _know_ you," he insists. "You're not good alone. Neither of us are."

" _Please_ , Jiho."

Jiho sighs loudly. "Kyung, I just want to say I'm sorry. I just think we should talk about what happened. Please let me in."

"I don't _want_ to, Jiho. It fucking hurts, you know that." His voice hitches, and he swallows back the lump in his throat.

Jiho presses tighter. His arm claps against the door. "That—that's" he licks his lips. "That's the kind of thing we should talk about, Kyung."

"It _always_ fucking hurts, Jiho. You _always_ fucking hurt me."

"Let me in, Kyung."

"I just—I just _want_ , and you _don't_. And that's _fine_." The tears collect on his eyelashes and drop without his permission. "But then you, you don't even fucking _acknowledge_. I've been _hurting_ so long. It's fucking _breaking_ me. You're supposed to be my best friend, Jiho."

"Kyung, please."

"That's not _fair_." The words break off in an audible sob. "That's not fucking fair."

"Please."

And Kyung is helpless. His limbs feel hollow, his brain fuzzy.

"Come here," Jiho breathes, enveloping him in a tight embrace as soon as he gets the door open. It's its own kind of painful, but he melts forward, shoulders shaking as he inundated with Jiho's scent. No cigarette smoke, no woman's perfume, no vague wax residue, no foreign sweat. Just Tide Detergent, just Old Spice, just childhood, just _home_. "I'm sorry," he whispers, smoothing the tears away with his thumbs.

"I'm in love with you," Kyung confesses into Jiho's neck, and Jiho nods slowly.

Pulling back, he cups Kyung's face between his hands, looking into his eyes for probably a beat too long before leaning forward to brush his lips against Kyung's forehead. Kyung's heart folds in on itself as Jiho rests his forehead against Kyung's.

He twines his fingers with Kyung's, leads them to sit thigh to thigh on Kyung's mattress. "Talk," he murmurs.

"That's it, Jiho," he manages, voice soft. "I'm in love with you, and you don't love me back."

"What do you want me to do, Kyung?" He lifts his palms in submission.

Kyung swallows hard, lifting his knees to his chin. He tries to fold his body in half, take up as little space as possible. "I want you to love me back," he mumbles.

"You don't want a broken, wrong kind of love," Jiho responds.

"I want you to love me back," he repeats.

"You don't want—"

"I want _you_ , Jiho."

That sheepish smile flashes across Jiho's features again, before dissolving into something more serious and contemplative. "I've been thinking a lot, Kyung. We've been best friends since we were 9 years old, and I don't know if…I want you to be happy…but it's kinda terrifying and I'm not even sure if I can…if I want to"

He sighs and drags Kyung's forward by the arm. He rubs circles into the hollow of Kyung's elbow. "What do you want me to do, Kyung?" he repeats.

Kyung feels hope blossoming in his chest, spreading in warm tendrils throughout his entire body. "Kiss me," he whispers.

 

Jiho does.

 

It's not like in his dreams, in his fantasies.

Their noses get in the way. Their teeth clack together. And Jiho's stubble scrapes against Kyung's lips. But Jiho's lips are so, so soft as they envelope his in a gentle dance of lips, and then—when Kyung emboldened presses harder, parts his lips—tongues. Jiho's hands whisper caresses over Kyung's cheekbones and through his hair.

It's so, so soft. An introduction, a cursory taste. Kyung has trouble breathing properly.

"Whoa," Jiho breathes. Before Kyung pulls him forward again. Kyung shivers at the feeling of Jiho's tongue as it swipes lazily along the seam of his lips before plunging inside once more. And suddenly it's not so gentle, not so innocent. Slick, hot, messy,

Suddenly it's hands tightening in fabric, Jiho's tongue tangling with his. Suddenly it's hearts pounding in their ribcages, breaking into pants. Suddenly it's Jiho guiding him back into the mattress, and Kyung's thighs falling open to accommodate him. It's bodies stirring, hardening.

It's Kyung drowning in the way that Jiho's moans taste. Hot, dirty, beautiful, breathed harshly against his lips, the hollow Kyung's throat, the dip of his collarbone, as the elder tangles his fingers in Jiho's hair, pulling him tighter.

It's overwhelming and perfect and so much better than Kyung could have ever hoped for.

One of Kyung's hand starts to wander downwards, resting on Jiho's hip and curling inwards, before Jiho captures it in his own, places it instead on his shoulder. And then Jiho's entire body is rolling forward, hips pressing hard, and Kyung's fingers are tightening in his biceps from the exquisite pleasure.

The grind is slow and sinuous, and Kyung is drunk on the feeling of Jiho's cock rubbing against his own, even through all the layers of constricting fabric. It's real. It's so real, Kyung feels like his bones are melting and his veins are singing.

Jiho's head lolls forward, panting hard, fast, devastatingly perfect. While Kyung's own mouth gapes to make room for broken moans, needy whines. Lips and fingers tingling, clinging, memorizing, Kyung grips Jiho's scalp, bucking helplessly, begging, begging, _needing_.

"Jiho," he whimpers, the lust storming within him. Tumultuous, turbulent. It drives him to pull Jiho harder against him. Roll his own hips upwards in tight, tight circles that have Jiho quivering, his arms trembling, his eyebrows furrowing, as he chews on his bottom lip.

"I need you so much closer," he huffs, voice huskier than Kyung's ever heard it.

They're side by side on the bed. Jiho cradles Kyung to him, biting into his shoulder, mouthing along his neck as he grabs Kyung's ass, guides his thrusts.

It doesn't allow for the same leverage. But he's more acutely aware of all the overwhelming perfect details. Every little tremor. The way that Jiho's eyelids flutter with every grind forward, the muscles undulating underneath Jiho's stomach, in his arms. It allows him to feel every filthy moaned confession. Broken confessions of "I'd let you fuck me, Kyung. If you promised to move your hips just like that, I'd let you fuck me" and "You're so sexy" and "I'm so close, Kyung. So _fucking_ close. Just from rubbing against you."

Kyung whines, digging his fingers into Jiho's thighs, moving desperately. The pleasure winds tighter and tighter in the pit of his stomach.

He tries to bury his face in Jiho's shirt, but Jiho tugs his hair harshly, forcing his head back. He bites down on Kyung's collarbone. The pleasure shoots straight up his spine, drains his limbs and his field of vision. He comes hard with a long drawn out moan, fists clenching into the fabric of Jiho's shirt, body trembling and weak with the aftershocks.

Jiho follows not long after, tugging him forward by the hair to press messy kisses to the side of Kyung's mouth. Kyung coaxes him through his, hand sliding down to cup Jiho in his haze until he tenses against him, sobbing into his Kyung's hair.

"I love you." Kyung manages to rasp out a while later, tongue still heavy, voice still rough.

Jiho's eyelids flutter downwards, and Kyung's fingers tighten on his shirt.

This would be the worst, he knows. He wouldn't survive it, he knows.

Jiho's mouth opens slowly, making as if to speak, and Kyung kisses him again. Through his mental haze, he can feel Jiho cup his cheek, thumb his eyebrow.


End file.
